Saturday Picks, Week 5: Is South Carolina marching to the top?

Since losing in Week 1 to Texas A&M, South Carolina has won three straight and is poised for a big lead in the SEC East with a win.

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A win today and South Carolina is in the driver’s seat for the SEC East title and a shot at the SEC Championship. South Carolina – The team that got blown out by Texas A&M in week 1, prompting everyone to criticize the Gamecocks (specifically head coach Steve Spurrier) and how poorly they recruited after losing star DE Jadeveon Clowney and QB Connor Shaw.

A win over the Missouri Tigers and the Gamecocks will own tiebreakers over the two main contenders for the SEC East title – the other being Georgia.

Here are the picks for Week 5 of the college football season:

#12 Georgia over Tennessee – Todd Gurley will have a field day for the Bulldogs.

#25 Kansas State over UTEP – The Wildcats need a statement game to stay in the top 25 with several SEC teams breathing down their necks

#9 Michigan State over Wyoming – After seeing what Michigan State did to Eastern Michigan last week, the intimidation factor alone might lose this game for Wyoming.

#19 Wisconsin over South Florida – How many TDs will Melvin Gordon score before half-time this week?

#1 Florida State over N.C. State – Winston is back. End of story.

#6 Texas A&M over Arkansas – Kenny Hill looks to continue his systematic elimination of Johnny Manziel from the subconscious of Aggies fans.

#5 Auburn over Louisiana Tech – Auburn needs a statement win to move up this week.

#16 Stanford over Washington – The Cardinals are trying to push the loss to USC as far away as possible. Bad luck for Washington in that case.

Cincinnati over #22 Ohio State – The big upset of the day: This is the kind of game where QB Gunner Kiel can prove he is for real against a vulnerable Ohio State team

Missouri over #13 South Carolina – This is the kind of big game that Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier tends to lose.

#17 LSU over New Mexico State – LSU is fuming after losing to Mississippi State last week and getting knocked out of the top 15.

#10 Ole Miss over Memphis – Ole Miss has to lose eventually, doesn’t it? But not this week.

#7 Baylor over Iowa State – QB Bryce Petty is quietly making himself a Heisman trophy candidate

#8 Notre Dame over Syracuse – This game has letdown written all over it for Notre Dame, but it’s on a neutral field instead of frigid Syracuse, so the Fighting Irish can probably hold off the Orange.

#21 Nebraska over Illinois – Illinois got crushed by its only other power-conference opponent on its schedule so far.  That doesn’t bode well for them against Ameer Abdullah and that great passing attack.

#18 USC over Oregon State – The Trojans need another PAC-12 win to get rid of the stench of the loss to Boston College.